Emma Stefansky

Tomatometer-approved critic

Publications: Vanity Fair, ScreenCrush, Uproxx, Thrillist, Polygon

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
	99%	Parasite (Gisaengchung) (2019)	It's so easy for otherwise good and normal people to do terrible things, and it's never entirely possible for them to escape their sins. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 11, 2019
	25%	A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby (2019)	Every scene in A Christmas Prince 3 that's not in the trailer feels like it was put there simply to pad out the empty space; every attempt at banter or jokes is partnered with a chuckle-heavy pause that drags for five seconds too long. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 5, 2019
	37%	In the Tall Grass (2019)	The only character that is compelling is real estate tycoon dad Ross Humboldt, played by an entertainingly manic Patrick Wilson, who succumbs to the grass early on and makes for a really, really fun villain. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 7, 2019
	26%	Gemini Man (2019)	Like Avatar, this is the kind of thing 3D was made for: a rip-roaring, visually sumptuous good time that brings all of the genre's flaws and cheats and tricks into the light and corrects them one by one. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 2, 2019
	97%	Knives Out (2019)	It's such fun to watch a writer-director like Johnson get to play with all the familiar, cozy tropes before throwing everything out the third-story window. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 12, 2019
	92%	Ford v Ferrari (2019)	Mangold's movie doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it sure leaves a pair of steaming tread marks in its wake. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 12, 2019
	69%	Joker (2019)	The movie isn't badly made or even ugly to look at, but there's a mean, smug little heart at the center of it that, at best, irresponsibly frames a familiar male power fantasy as a revolutionary act. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 12, 2019
	85%	Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019)	Most of the time it works, especially during its funnier moments -- and this movie is very funny. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2019
	83%	Crawl (2019)	Crawl demands your respect for its antagonists: as soon as the water reaches your knees, humans are no longer the apex predators. Survival merely boils down to how well you can sneak by. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 13, 2019
	91%	The Lighthouse (2019)	If not for Pattinson and Dafoe being two of the world's most recognizable working actors, I would believe this could be some recently unearthed treasure from an earlier era of filmmaking. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 11, 2019
	58%	The House That Jack Built (2018)	Von Trier may be a provocateur, but his brand of provocation seems to be growing stale. - Slate EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 8, 2019
	32%	The Predator (2018)	The Predator kills the Predator in true alien sport-hunter fashion: gleefully smearing glow-in-the-dark entrails all over something beloved before finally ripping out its spine. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 8, 2019
	61%	Vox Lux (2018)	A harsh examination of our modern fixation on celebrity that paints the present as a horrific, violent dystopia. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 8, 2019
	57%	Pet Sematary (2019)	At an hour and 41 minutes, Pet Sematary is much too short for the kind of dread it requires to stack up a series of circumstances that could drive a father to do the unthinkable. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2019
	56%	The Beach Bum (2019)	It's all incredibly fun, and hilarious, and weird, but with surprisingly earnest feelings of tenderness towards its subjects. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 29, 2019
	85%	The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)	The Lego Movie 2 ups the ante on the first hit with its elaborate setup and eye-popping new characters. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 11, 2019
	76%	Abducted in Plain Sight (2017)	While it's easy to think that no one alive could be as naive as the Brobergs, the documentary is a sobering reminder of the power of manipulation, the failures of the justice system. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 7, 2019
	61%	Alita: Battle Angel (2019)	This movie proves that, finally, Hollywood not only has the technology, but the imagination necessary to do a great story justice. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 4, 2019
	19%	Polar (2019)	Polar isn't for everyone, but you can't say it pulls any punches. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 28, 2019
	37%	Glass (2019)	Never a particularly subtle director, Shyamalan gives you all the clues you need to figure out most of his third-act twists, provided you know what you're looking for. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 15, 2019
	50%	Escape Room (2019)	It's so much fun that the payoff is ultimately a convoluted disappointment, but I can hardly complain considering how many times I gasped or cringed or whispered "yesss" throughout the rest of it. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 8, 2019
	50%	A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018)	I also forgot most of A Christmas Prince 2's plot because it doesn't really have one. Maybe that's too mean: it definitely has a plot, one that's actually a little interesting this time. - Thrillist EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 11, 2018
	95%	A Quiet Place (2018)	A Quiet Place sits comfortably in the fun, poppy subgenre of horror, a popcorn thriller more than a dread-infused meditation on terror, but manages to play around with its own setting and characters enough to stand out. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 26, 2018
	91%	Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)	The simplest way to describe it would be a diet version of The LEGO Batman Movie: a film so self-referential it puts even Deadpool's fourth-wall-busting to shame. - Polygon EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 26, 2018
	80%	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is almost aggressively a movie for everyone to enjoy, a bouncy escape from reality where all problems are resolved in the time it takes to belt out a couple tunes. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 20, 2018
	48%	Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)	There is a little bit of the wonder and joy that made the original so special embedded deep within Fallen Kingdom, which I credit to Bayona, whose primary drive has always been to sprinkle just enough emotion into the stories he tells. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 5, 2018
6/10	58%	Under the Silver Lake (2019)	Films like this about slow-burn conspiracies that take ages to unravel their cheeky premises rarely live up to all the work that goes into watching them get there, and Under the Silver Lake is no different... But maybe the resolution isn't the point. - ScreenCrush EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2018
4/10	33%	Fahrenheit 451 (2018)	Reads like a C-minus high school paper: it understands that the book burning is bad, but it doesn't really get why. - ScreenCrush EDIT Read More \| Posted May 15, 2018
7/10	96%	BlacKkKlansman (2018)	Stallworth's mission did not save the country from its original sin, and Spike Lee's film refuses to absolve us. - ScreenCrush EDIT Read More \| Posted May 15, 2018
	16%	Blumhouse's Truth or Dare (2018)	Truth or Dare again proves that, even with projects that aren't in prestige realm, Jason Blum's production studio is the horror house to watch. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2018
	92%	Love, Simon (2018)	Love, Simon isn't a subtle movie by any means, but it ought to be praised for normalizing something that should have been normal from the start. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 13, 2018
	40%	Gringo (2018)	It's an especially fun dark comedy from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 8, 2018
	56%	The Greatest Showman (2017)	The Greatest Showman is earnest, joyful, not bad enough to be bad, but not good enough to be the next Rent. - Uproxx EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 20, 2017